Pontifical High Mass (Tridentine) at La Crosse WI, December 10th

Our friends at The Remnant have sent along an invitation received from Una Voce La Crosse, as follows:

Our founder, His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, will offer the 1st ever Pontifical High Mass (Tridentine) at the Shrine he founded in La Crosse, Wisconsin on Saturday December 10th. We are hoping to get the word out to have a great group for him and the Sacred Tradition.This will be the first Pontifical High Mass His Eminence has offered at the Shrine he founded in 2008. There will be priests from the FSSP, Institute, and Diocese of La Crosse assisting as familiari. All are warmly welcome.

Opportunities to hear Holy Mass as it should be celebrated are few and far between in the USA these days, and a Pontifical High Mass is a rarity indeed. Good Catholics are urged to make every effort to attend, for the greater honour and glory of God first and foremost, but also as a way of showing support and appreciation for the strong stand in defence of Holy Mother Church that Cardinal Burke is making at this very moment.

Prominent Cardinal suggests "more traditional" Catholic worship

Walt knows that this item is going to be relevant only to a minority of WWW readers, including Agents 9, 10 and 3. But I'm posting it anyway because I think it's important for traditional Catholics and the world at large to know that the modernists in the Vatican have not yet succeeded in stamping out the yearning for the Mass of All Time and forms of worship that are more spiritual and respectful than the dreadful Novus Ordo Mass, particularly as "performed" in the USA.

Yesterday, L'Osservatore Romano (the official Vatican newspaper) published "Silenziosa azione del cuore", an article written by Robert Cardinal Sarah, in which the prelate discusses the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. Modernists, including Pope Francis (known for his "anything goes" celebrations of the Mass) should be mortified to read Cardinal Sarah's call for a more faithful implementation of its text.

The Cardinal laments the continuing misinterpretation of the Constitution's teaching on "active participation", and suggests (shock! horror!) an appendix to the Roman Missal that might better manifest what he thinks is the continuity of the ordinary (Novus Ordo) and extraordinary (Tridentine - traditional Latin) forms of the Mass.

It should be noted that Cardinal Sarah is the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, so should know whereof he writes. In a telling criticism of priests and bishops who see the Mass as a kind performance or entertainment, and make themselves the focal point of the liturgy. He writes, "The liturgy is essentially the action of Christ. If this vital principle is not received in faith, it is likely to make the liturgy a human work, a self-celebration of the community."

Discussing the peculiar American practice of having not just the priest but everyone involved -- holding hands during the Our Father, raising their hands during the consecration, shaking hands and kissing during the abominable "sign of peace" -- Cardinal Sarah criticized the "contemporary Western mentality" in which the faithful are to be "constantly busy" and in which the Mass is to be rendered "convivial".

"To speak of a 'celebrating community'", he writes "is not without ambiguity and requires real caution. The participatio actuosa [active participation] should not therefore be understood as the need to do something. On this point the teaching of the Council has often been distorted. It is instead to let Christ take us and associate us with his sacrifice."

Instead, the Cardinal recommends modification of the Novus Ordo liturgy to include some of the elements and practices of the traditional Tridentine Mass which the modernists -- not least Pope Francis -- have been trying to suppress. He advocated ad orientem (East-facing) workship, in these words: "It is entirely consistent with the conciliar constitution, it is indeed opportune that, during the rite of penance, the singing of the Gloria, the orations, and the Eucharistic prayer, everyone, priest and faithful, should turn together towards the East, to express their will to participate in the work of worship and of redemption accomplished by Christ."

He also recommends less noise! The Tridentine Mass has long periods of silence during which the priest prays in a low whisper, or even silently, allowing the faithful to meditate or pray silently. Cardinal Sarah says that "sacred awe" and "joyful fear require our silence in the presence of the Divine Majesty. It is often forgotten that sacred silence is one of the means set forth by the Council to encourage participation."

And there's more! Cardinal Sarah recalled the Council’s teaching -- ignored even before the ink dried on the documents -- that the faithful should "be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them," and said that the liturgy "must stop being a place of disobedience to the requirements of the Church."

The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, he emphasized, should not be read with a "hermeneutic of rupture". Walt can imagine Pope Francis and the likes of Cardinal Dolan saying, "Really? But we thought it was supposed to be a break with the past!" But Cardinal Sarah disagrees strongly: "It would be wrong to consider the extraordinary form of the Roman rite as coming from another theology." To manifest that the ordinary form and the extraordinary form are "in continuity and without opposition," he writes, "it would be desirable that there be an appendix in an upcoming edition of the Roman Missal that would permit celebrants in the ordinary form to use the penitential rite and the offertory of the extraordinary form."

So there. Vatican II did not call for the suppression of the Latin Mass. Indeed, it could not be, because, as John Vennari points out in "Traditional Mass Never Forbidden", the Papal Bull Quo Primum of St. Pius V solemnly proclaimed that the Latin Tridentine Mass could never be forbidden, and that all priests and faithful will always have the right to avail themselves of this liturgy."

Now, all Cardinal Sarah has to do is convince Pope Francis to not just read but heed what the Vatican II Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy actually said, and put its recommendations (and his) into practice. The Pope could, himself, set the proper example. But, dear Catholic readers, don't hold your breath...

Further reading: "Derive liturgiche. Ma il cardinale Sarah riprende il timone", by noted Vaticanista Sandro Magister, in L'Espresso.

Negotiations between Rome and the SSPX: Abp. Muller slams the door

The new Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -- the old Holy Office -- Archbishop Gerhard Muller, should have been a politician. Last week he demonstrated a remarkable gift for saying different things in different languages to different audience.

Katholisches: Magazin für Kirche und Kultur reports on two interviews given by the prelate on the topic of his main challenge, the "negotiations" between the Society of St. Pius X and the Vatican over the readmission of the former to the mainstream modernist Catholic Church.

Speaking in German to Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Muller took a very hard line, saying (not quite in so many words) that the negotiations are at an end. But talking with the (US) National Catholic Register in English, he was all hopeful and prayerful that a "spirit of unity" would prevail... provided of course that the SSPX bends its collective knee to the will of the Holy Father to break with the Traditional Faith once and for all.

Here's what Abp. Muller said in German. (Please don't be nitpicky about the translation. Neither Walt nor Ed. reads/writes German, so we've had to rely on others.)


"Bruderschaft ist für uns kein Verhandlungspartner, weil es über den Glauben keine Verhandlungen gibt." This Society [the SSPX] is for us not a negotiation-partner because there is no negotiation over the Faith.

"Es gibt keine Ermäßigungen was den katholischen Glauben angeht, gerade wie er auch vom Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil gültig formuliert worden ist." No reduction that can be tolerated to the Catholic Faith, exactly as it has been formulated by the Second Vatican Council. [Rather a revealing statement, that last part, since the Council itself never specifically said that its pronouncements were to have the authority of defined dogma.]

"Es gibt jetzt keine neuen Gespräche mehr." There is no more negotiation. [That's what the man said. If the translation is incorrect, please could someone supply the correct interpretation.]

Muller's position sounds pretty clear to me. He has stated once again the Vatican's hard-line policy that the Society of St. Pius X must do two things:
(1) accept the documents of Vatican II as doctrine, with no further debate over their errors and heresies;
(2) accept as valid the Novus Ordo mass, which the Pope now calls the "Ordinary Rite", to distinguish it from the centuries-old Tridentine Mass which we are now told is "Extraordinary".

The truth that Bishop Bernard Fellay, the leader of the SSPX, refuses to recognize is that these two conditions have never been, in the Pope's mind, negotiable. We can see this now through the revelations of the Vatileaks documents, for the release of which the Pope's butler, Paolo Gabriele, was this week found guilty.

In trying to reach an accommodation of any sort with Rome, Fellay and his followers -- perhaps a minority within the SSPX -- have been wasting their time. It's not going to happen! As the Society's founder, Archbishop Lefebvre, might have said: no matter how long your spoon, you cannot sup with the Devil!

Reform of the reform? Whatever for?

Our man in Rome [the other man! Ed.] weighs in with some comments on Pope Benedict XVI's plan to somehow merge the traditional Latin Tridentine Mass with the Novus Ordo "new mass", which the Holy Father himself called a "fabricated, banal, on-the-spot product".

John Vennari, editor of Catholic Family News, makes the excellent point that what is urgently needed in today's Catholic Church is not a "reform of the reform", but a return to the Mass of All Time, which by decree of Pope St. Pius V could not and cannot be changed.

In an e-mail to Agent 3, Mr. Vennari called Kurt Cardinal Koch’s announcement that the Pope's Motu Proprio is part of a long-term plan to merge both the old and new Mass "lunacy"!

On May 15th, John was privileged to attend a Pontifical High Mass celebrated at St. Peter's according to the "extraordinary" (Tridentine) rite. He made a short (six-minute) video which you can see on here.



Why anyone but a Protestant would feel moved to replace the beauty of the Latin Mass and sacred music with the dumbed-down guitar-picking "kumbayas" of the modern era is beyond me.

Holy Mass: back to the future

Last week Pope Benedict XVI issued an instruction to clarify and reinforce Summorum Pontificum, his 2007 apostolic letter that encouraged wider use of the old Tridentine Rite of the Holy Mass. Because the letter called the Mass of All Time "the extraordinary rite", some bishops and priests seemed to feel that the new novus ordo mass was to remain the norm.

The old mass, the modernists argue, is only to be trotted out occasionally to appease old-fashioned traditional Catholics who feel the new mass is really a "new mess" foisted on the Church at Vatican II by a fifth column of Protestants and Masons.

Last week's instruction makes it clear that, rather than just throwing a sop to the Society of St. Pius X and other traditionalists, the Holy Father is slowly but surely attempting to turn around St. Peter's barque around. According to Kurt Cardinal Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Summorum Pontificum is just the first step in a "reform of the reform" in liturgy.

The cardinal said on Saturday that Pope Benedict thinks the post-Vatican II liturgical changes have brought "many positive fruits" but also problems, including a focus on purely practical matters and a neglect of the paschal mystery in the Eucharistic celebration. He said it was legitimate to ask whether liturgical innovators had intentionally gone beyond the council's stated intentions.

This, he went on, explains why the Holy Father has introduced a new reform movement, beginning with Summorum Pontificum. The aim, he said, is to revisit Vatican II's teachings in liturgy and strengthen certain elements, including the Christological and sacrificial dimensions of the Mass.

The pope's long-term aim is not simply to allow the old and new rites to coexist, Cardinal Koch concluded, but to move toward a "common rite" that is shaped by the mutual enrichment of the two Mass forms.

Walt's advice to Catholics born since 1956? Sign up for Latin lessons!

Follow-up: Reform of the reform

A survey conducted by Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate has found that American Catholics with an opinion on the subject favour the availability of the "extraordinary form of the Mass" -- i.e. the Tridentine Latin Mass -- by a two to one margin.

When asked “Do you favor as an alternative to the newer Mass, bringing back the older Latin Tridentine Mass for those who would prefer this option?” 25% favor the option, 12% oppose it.

Significantly, 63% had no opinion. Apparently nearly two-thirds of American Catholics don't care which form of Holy Mass is used. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that, since the introduction of the "ecumenical" Novus Ordo (NO) mass following Vatican II, the majority of Catholics no longer regularly attend mass on Sundays and Holy Days.

Whether a return to the traditional Latin Mass, or a reform of the NO mass would reverse this terrible trend remains to be seen.

God is good! Great news for traditional Catholics! Te Deum Laudamus!

This article will not be relevant to non-Catholics. Catholics who have embraced the "reforms" of Vatican II will be dismayed, but Catholics who hold to the traditions of Holy Mother Church will thank God and His Blessed Mother for the news that follows.

Under the heading "The 'Reform of the Reform' is in motion" Rorate Cæli has reprinted an article by Italian journalist Andrea Tornielle, writing in Il Giornale. According to Tornielli, the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship has proposed to Pope Benedict XVI a number of significant changes to the liturgical norms for the Novus Ordo (NO) mass instituted by Vatican II.

The NO mass has long been decried by traditionalists as "the victory of Protestantism" within the Church. Some go so far as to deny that it is a valid mass at all. Traditionalists welcomed the Holy Father's Motu Proprio restoring the traditional Tridentine Mass in Latin, only to be disappointed that the TLM remains an "extraordinary" rite, whose use has been resisted by many bishops, particularly in North America.

Now it appears that the CDW recognizes the numerous and scandalous abuses of the NO mass, and has a plan to restore a greater sense of the sacred to the central institution of Catholic worship.

You'll find a translation of the Il Giornale report on the Rorate Cæli website. Tornielli suggests that the CDW's proposals could be the basis for the "reform of the reform" the Holy Father has been seeking. In effect, elements of the Tridentine liturgy would be brought into the NO mass.

The CDW is reportedly advocating an end to the pernicious practice of receiving Holy Communion in the hand. Readers will remember the controversy over what Canadian Prime Minister Harper -- who, as a Protestant, shouldn't have received Communion in the first place -- did with the Host he received from the hands of the priest. If he had dropped or discarded it, that would have been a terrible sacrilege. Yet thousands of hosts -- the Body of Christ -- are dropped, trodden on or abused every week because of this Lutheran-inspired practice.

It is also suggested that after some 45 years of having the priest face the people, there should be a return to celebrating Mass ad orientem. That means facing east. Before Vatican II it was the practice to build churches facing east, so that when the priest, on behalf of the people, faced the altar, he was looking towards Jerusalem, towards the site of the Crucifixion and Resurrection, towards the place where Christ will come again. Many new churches are aligned north and south, but the symbolism of having the priest face a proper altar, rather than the Protestant table now in use, can only be welcomed.

And while they're at it, one hopes the Blessed Sacrament will be restored to Its rightful position in the sanctuary, rather than an alcove somewhere out of site. The object should be make the focus of the Holy Mass not the priest, not the people, but Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Tornielli writes that the CDW report was submitted to the Pope for further discussion and study rather than as a proposal for immediate change. However, it can only be seen as an indication that the liturgical pendulum is at last swinging back towards sanity.

Deus bonus est! Te Deum laudamus!